University education for rural folk
BEGINNING next year people from rural areas in all the country’s 10 provinces will be equipped with university education that solves community challenges.
The programme will be rolled out under the Rural Education Transformation Programme meant to create different types of talents that can support the industrial development of the country.
Zimbabwe Open University ( ZOU), in partnership with Malaysia Binary University of Management and Entrepreneurship, will be rolling out the programme.
Speaking after meeting President Mnangagwa at State House in Harare yesterday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Permanent Secretary, Professor Fanuel Tagwira, said the programme will start early next year.
“This is an initiative which was started by President Mnangagwa when he discussed with his counterpart the former President of Malaysia.
Around February we should be able to start,” he said.
“The idea is about Binary partnering with ZOU to train young people in rural areas, empowering them with education. Ensuring that every region, village in Zimbabwe is not left behind in the process of bringing education to the people through distance learning.”
Professor Tagwira said the meeting with the President was to apprise him on progress made.
Malaysia Binary University of Management and Entrepreneurship executive chairman Professor Joseph Adalkalam said the objective of the programme is to ensure that international quality education reaches every village in Zimbabwe.
“The outcome of the Rural Education Transformation Programme is to create different types of talents that can support the industry development of this country.
“We call that talent Industry specialist professionals and Binary university has been producing these for more than 40 years throughout the world,”
he said. Prof Adalkalam said students used to come to Malaysia to become industrial specialist professionals, but that is costly hence a resolution to bring education to Zimbabwe using technology and partnership with ZOU.
“The industry specialist professionals can work anywhere around the world but at the same time we are mindful of the fact that we want to keep them in their villages so that they can be engaged in jobs that will be created through partnerships,” he said.
“It is not just an education we are bringing, but 10 500 real entrepreneurs working on this project with us. We also have employers globally looking for industrial specialist professional talents.”
Prof Adalkalam said the programme would also be entrepreneurship-based as democratisation of education has seen more graduates emerging than jobs and employers have become highly selective.